You Might Be In Danger Playing Guitar
Posted: Thursday, May 11, 2006
by Mike Morin
Awesome Guitar Lessons
Imagine this…
You pick up the guitar one day. Start playing your favourite
song, and all of a sudden you feel this pain in your wrist.
It's a sort of pain that distracts you from your playing.
You think to yourself "I'll toughen it out it'll probably go
away tomorrow", and continue to play some more. You continue
to play like this day to day, and then you notice that the
pain keeps getting worse. You wonder to yourself "Will this
pain ever go away? I hope so." The problem is, this might
not be just a pain that will go away. It might be a pain
that will cause serious injuries such as tendonitis.
tendon. When you over stretch your tendons it begins to tear
which leads to swelling. This is very dangerous because
tendons are hard to heal, and will unlikely heal to the
original strength. A lot of times this pain is caused
by not stretching before you play. Stretching plays a big
role in guitar playing. When you stretch your hands,
fingers, wrists, and arms you widen the range of motion of
your joints. Which will also enable you to play more
effortlessly, and faster. When you play without stretching
you have limited joint movement. Which means that your hands
and wrists won't be as flexible as if you were to stretch
before playing.
Here are a few stretches that you can do before you play:
*Place the palm of your left hand to the inside of your
fingers on your right hand. Push with your left hand so your
fingers are going towards your forearms until you feel a
burn in the wrist. Hold for 10-15 seconds. Now do the
other hand. You can also do each finger individually.
*Extend your left arm fully across your chest, and with
your other arm pull your left arm towards your chest. Hold
for 10-15 seconds.
*With your left palm push the inside of your thumb towards
your forearm, hold for 10 seconds.
*Extend your arm behind your shoulder by holding your elbow
with your other hand. Pull until you feel a burn. Hold for
10-15 seconds for each arm.
*Thoroughly massage your hands and fingers individually.
This is a crucial step. This will really relax your hands.
Not only should you stretch just before you play the
guitar, but also any other time you get the chance. Guitar
is not the only place that you can get an injury such
as tendonitis. You can get it from exercise or physical
work. Always stretch before doing a lot of movement that's
involved in working and exercising. If you start to feel
pain, STOP PLAYING. This is a danger sign to a minor or
serious injury. Just give it a rest, and if the pain
continues consult a doctor. Remember, it's all about having
fun.
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Mike Morin is the writer of the Awesome Guitar Lessons
Newsletter. Awesome Guitar Lessons provides free guitar
lessons to new and experienced guitarists. Also, up
to date information on guitarists around the world.
Awesome Guitar Lessons
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Thanks for the tips. It seems to be bar chords that really make my wrist hurt. I'm talking 5-10 minutes of those things will leave me in agony. It really sucks since I mostly play acoustic :( I usually try to warm up with scales also. Maybe it's just time for me to move to the bagpipe or something (haha)
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